


The House by Mirror Lake

by asuralucier, mosolytobb



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Multimedia, Psychological Thriller, truth is stranger than fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 15:34:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14957315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosolytobb/pseuds/mosolytobb
Summary: "I’m not easily spooked, but something about Oliver’s lakeside château - with all of its reflective glass - gives me the creeps. It feels disorienting somehow, to be always on display. Or maybe it’s Oliver himself and his Stepford wife. Either way, I can’t help but wonder how many people have been murdered out there in those woods."CMBYN reimagined as a psychological thriller - told through words and pictures.





	1. Coming Soon

  

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	2. Special Features

 

    

 

   

 

 

  

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, if you are viewing on your phone you may need to zoom in to read some text but they are large images that should be HD and easy to read. Any problems with viewing imagery, please comment!


	3. Epigraphs

 

 

 

**"Who is invisible enough to see you."**

_\- Paul Celan_

 

 

**"I have always tried to live in an ivory tower, but a tide of shit is beating at its walls, threatening to undermine it."**

_\- Gustave Flaubert_

 

 

   

 

 


	4. Prologue: The Package

Although it is not quite dark yet, it’s cold. Spring seems to arrive late in upstate New York most of the time and now is no exception. Fishkill Road is the last leg of my journey, winding lazily outside the village of Cold Spring for a few miles until I have to veer into an unsigned track that will eventually become my driveway.

Coming home means that I have to remind myself that I live here, again. It’s always a bit of a queer feeling. The house is unassuming on approach. Only the garage and courtyard gate are visible, the rest sitting snug into the contours of the landscape. For the last four years, coinciding with the publication of my first book, my wife and I have lived in a glorified cabin in the woods. It’d taken two years to build from the ground up and I don’t think Cecelia spared any expense, taking a large chunk out of her trust fund for the deposit. (Correction: she’d called it a “chunk,” like it was only paltry change. I think my head is still spinning too hard to come up with what I’d call it.)

Our architect, a man who’d apparently designed bridges in Switzerland looking to expand his portfolio, had described it as a house that “seduces the outdoors indoors.” He ended up envisioning a modern take on a log cabin with the unmistakable charm of a lake house like he was starved for aesthetics. Sleek cedar against smooth glass, arranged in flawless order to embrace uninterrupted views of Mirror Lake and the woodland just over. A not-so-modest slice of paradise; neither small nor palatial. Just perfectly, painfully privileged, with all the flashy interiors to match. My house is probably as pompous as his accent, but then that’s something else I’ve kept to myself.

(And it’s hardly my house.)

My wife Cecelia is testament to her parents’ loving Simon and Garfunkel. Spelling it _Cecilia_ , however, had proved a touch too old-fashioned for my mother-in-law so she’d lobbied instead for one vowel to be swapped out for another. Misspellings happened so often now that no one had noticed when Cecelia’s name had been butchered on our wedding invites (except when people had and maybe lawyers had gotten involved - if briefly). I try not to think too much about how absurd my life has gotten.

As I come through the garage, I am careful to set my shoes by the door and check my soles for mud. Once everything is satisfactory, I move through to the kitchen.

“Oliver? That you?”

“No, it’s a bloody axe murderer,” I say. “I think we’re overdue one of those.”

“That, is so not funny.” Still, Cecelia, looking fetching as ever in a strappy summer dress, puts down her knife and comes to greet me. There’s scallion on the chopping board, and the sunset glances dismissively off the glass. It may be freezing outside, but the temperature in here is controlled, fixed within the comfort zone according to the season. Everything about her is breezy and effortless, but at the same time, I’ve seen entire boardrooms rapt with attention and fear. She doesn’t have to be like that with me.

“Hi,” She leans in - not up, notably, Cecelia is as tall as I am when she’s in heels. We share a chaste kiss before she returns to her task. There must be a text on my phone that tells me what we’re having for dinner tonight, but try as I might I don’t remember. I’ve had a long day.

“Hey,” I drop my bag on the counter and take a moment to greet the dogs who have scuttled loudly over to me. Andrew and Milo, brothers from the same litter of Brittany spaniels, know that my return means a good chance of being let out. They wag their tails hopefully, but I shake my head.

“...Give me a moment, guys. Let me have a breather,” I tell them, and turn my attention back on Cecelia instead. I think she was wearing this exact dress when _House & Home_ had sent by a photographer to shoot a feature, the colors from the dress had made Cecelia pop. I remember that. The photographer had been obsessed with _pop_. When it was my turn to pose in my study, his favorite words did a one-eighty to include _subdued_ and _pensive_. As if he too, just by virtue of looking at me through his lenses, knows that I am not meant to be here. I might as well try to blend in with the furniture.

I graze a hand along the dip of her lower back, planting a kiss where her collarbone meets her shoulder. The gesture is familiar, even rehearsed. I sometimes wonder if she’s began to notice how much of my affection seems to run on muscle memory. I’m beyond second guessing my own actions, but I can’t always tell if she is. Cecelia leans back against me and sighs, “...You know, I am holding a knife.”

Her hair, naturally white blonde, is fastidiously kept short and tapered at her neck. “ - I can’t miss my wife?”

“You’ve only been gone for two days,” she says, but I can tell that she’s smiling. I kiss her cheek.

“Two days with Brendan feels like a week.”

“I wish you’d stop that,” now her chops are a little bit more measured, snippier and snappier. “You’re not exactly helping your own case, here.”

Cecelia and I both work for her father, CEO of the Meier Publishing Company, in very different contexts. My wife is the CMO and I like to call myself head hack. It’s not a particularly popular title and for the most part, it’s only something I call myself. I don’t work too closely with Brendan in my day-to-day and I can usually get Julian or someone to fend him off for me. However, it’s a different story when a book is about to hit the market; somehow he manages to be everywhere at once. Between making sure all the press releases are sufficiently personalized, recounting all the signed copies, and triple checking the first batch of reviews I feel like I’ve hardly had any time to breathe. If anything, I am feeling bruised and wilted from her father’s presence. But I’m home now, and Cecelia does a great job of helping me lick my wounds.

Brendan Meier doesn’t like me much, but I understand why. He’d probably been full of plans for his daughter, whip-smart, gorgeous, and more than anything, _eligible_. But then she’d fallen for someone like me. She likely didn’t mean to, and now here we are.

“I’ve really missed you,” I exhale against her skin. “You smell nice.”

There’s a pause as she puts down the knife again. Then, Cecelia shifts in my arms and we kiss properly. She sighs into my mouth, “New moisturizer. I missed you too.”

We stay like that, still for another minute, and then she says, “Go shower. Dinner will be another few minutes. And oh,” Cecelia snaps her fingers, as if she’s just remembered, “Check your study. Levi came by and sorted through your mail, said you got a package.”

 

It doesn’t take me long to shower, but I already feel better. My study is near enough to the kitchen that I can still hear Cecelia moving if I keep my door open. But after lingering a moment, I close it. My gut says that there is something not right about this package that is waiting for me. I’m not expecting anything, and Levi knows to get rid of anything suspicious or unsolicited - not that I am famous enough for that sort of thing to happen often. The worst I get is a bad manuscript or two. I sometimes keep them to remind myself how far I’ve come.

My study is the only room that doesn’t quite align with the elegance that flows through the rest of the house, but this is the room in which I feel most at home. When I am obligated to give tours of this place, which is only sometimes, I try to work in a joke about how too much organization interferes with my productivity, that the classic symmetry that has purveyed throughout every other room is in fact distracting.

I especially like my desk, a vintage oak with one drawer too many that I’d picked up at a garage sale before I’d moved out of my parents’ house for college. Since then, the desk has been imbued with (somewhat misplaced) sentimental value, having seen me through all six years of Harvard. I’m pretty sure it’s Stockholm Syndrome. Cecelia certainly feels that she’s been held hostage by my desk, but she’s learned to live with it. We finally called a truce two years ago, when she’d bought me an emeralite that she’d seen at an auction for my thirtieth. It sits on the edge of my desk like a proud eyesore.

Any successful marriage is founded on compromise, after all.

I ignore my other mail for the time being and stare at the package. Its plain wrapping paper and handwriting tells me nothing, though it is unmistakably my name **Mr. Oliver Hayes** , my unlisted address, and nothing else.

At first, I am relieved it is just a manuscript, neatly bound in a quick spiral job. It is not long, and I start to flip through it but then I see the attached note, which reads:

 

_Elio_. His name inexplicably reaches out and grabs at my throat. The rest follows, like the tightening of a noose. Eight years - I fill in the blanks as if I’ve always known it. Eight years, since his name has had any cause to take up room in my head. I know I shouldn’t look, but I can’t help myself.

How have I forgotten his handwriting? I assume the note is recently penned, but there is suddenly something familiar about it - no-nonsense, but still fanciful and even boyish. The script lives in this study, in secret, in a book. Where is the book? Have I just been dreaming this whole time, the ordeal becoming ever more real in my current life, a long-dead specter suddenly alive in the present? With the note out of the way, I flick my eyes over the cover page:

 

 **_CALL ME BY YOUR NAME_ **  
_By Elio Perlman_

Call Me by Your Name _tells the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blooms between seventeen-year-old Enzo and his father’s house guest Caleb over the course of a restless summer on the Italian Riviera. Currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire threaten to overwhelm the lovers, who at first feign indifference to the charge between them. What ensues is a romance of scarcely six weeks’ duration, yet an experience that will mark them for a lifetime. For what Enzo and Caleb discover on the Riviera, and again during a sultry evening in Rome, is the one thing they both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy._

 

I feel ill, but the sickness itself welling up inside me is more strange than anything. I might have said those words once _call me by your name_ , but the words hardly seem to belong to me. My head struggles to find room for them; all they manage to do is push listlessly against the confines of my cranium only to return to a well-trodden path going nowhere.

I thumb the first few pages between my fingers. The paper is good quality, much better than any draft probably deserves, but then I think, he’s always been _like that_ , like I have any way of still knowing. The paper is smooth and almost reminds me of skin. My wife’s skin.

 

Later! _The word, the voice, the attitude…_

 

There’s a knock on my door, and I nearly jump out of my chair but not out of my skin, “ - Yeah?”

“Dinner’s ready,” comes Cecelia’s voice from the hallway. I keep waiting for my luck to give up on me but no, it keeps on going and the door stays closed. “What are you doing in there?”

“I,” I panic and grab the whole of the manuscript and turn on the shredder, which is by my desk. The pages can’t disappear fast enough. “ - Cleaning up. Be another minute.”

“Okay, I’ll go ahead and serve,” with that, her footsteps fade away again.

I wait until I’m sure the last page has been fed through. Then I crumple up the packaging and toss it into the trash.

 

For the last few months, Cecelia and I have not been having wine or any other sort of alcohol with dinner; I don’t usually miss it, but I do today.

“Were you shredding something in there?”

“Yes,” I say. There is no use lying. “That package was just promotional junk. Some furniture company.”

“Addressed to you?” She lifts an eyebrow. “I might have wanted to look at that. You know I’ve been wanting a new console table for the foyer.”

“Yes, addressed to me,” I affirm. “Do you really want to look through a catalogue addressed to me, Cilly? You’re better than that.”

Cecelia rolls her eyes and the moment passes. She’s made tofu and cabbage topped with scallion over some sort of noodles. Maybe buckwheat. Something else that her dietician probably recommended.

I cave, “Do you mind if I have a beer?”

She looks at me, “One.”

“One,” I echo dutifully as I get up. “Do you want one?”

“Oliver, I _can’t_.”

I grab a beer from the fridge, but then I detour to the appropriate cabinet to fetch two glasses. “Just a splash of mine then. Come on, the book’s going to be due out next week and Brendan says the talks with Netflix are moving forward; filming starts in a couple of months. I want to at least celebrate.” Celebrate, and not think. One beer is not going to be enough for that, but it’s at least a start. I’m desperate for a start.

Cecelia’s smile is an indulgent one, “Fine. But just a splash. - Stop,” she puts a hand on my wrist as I tip the beer forward into her glass for about two seconds, maybe even less.

We clink glasses. She barely sips her splash (and it really is just a _splash_ because she is good, and her self-control more than makes up for that absent quality within me and myself), “Well. Congratulations. That’s wonderful.”

“Thanks,” I say. The beer is cool going down my throat. I already feel better.

Cecelia waits a moment, and then says, “We can celebrate another way, too.” It’s less flirty and full of promise for later, more something that’s practical and needs doing. She’ll nail sexy though, so that’s fine. I can have that. “Did I tell you? Susan and Hutton are pregnant.”

Sometimes I am intimidated by how my wife’s mind works. Cecelia keeps track of everything: our social calendar, her ovulation cycle, who is pregnant (not us). She has just turned thirty-five and this is fast becoming a sticking point. I drink more beer, “Good for them.”

“Not really,” Cecelia shrugs. “I called her this afternoon. The morning sickness is already getting to her. She’s taking time off work.”

Morning sickness. The beer is not keeping my own sickness at bay. Suddenly my nausea is back in full force and I wonder if there’s enough time to get myself going in the study before bed. I can think of paper-like skin.

“Hey, get up.” I stand from my chair and after a moment, she does too, expression all parts quizzical.

“Oliver, what are you -”

I stride over to Cecelia and pull her towards me. She makes a little noise and then when I make to pin her against the side of the kitchen counter, my wife lets me. Cecelia brushes her fingers by my jaw and then down to the collar of my t-shirt. We’re right next to floor-to-ceiling glass looking out onto Mirror Lake. Anyone could see us but there’s no one and we’re alone in the world.

“Well,” she says.

“Hello,” I say. When I lean in to kiss her, I can taste a bit of beer. “I love you, you know.”

Everything about Cecelia is perfect. Her skin, the soft promise that comes with the insides of her thighs and inside her very being. I bend my head and slide the strap down her shoulders. It takes a bit of doing, but I expose her left breast and kiss the small birthmark right under her nipple. It’s something that she’s self-conscious about, but I like it.

I like everything about her.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 1: The Visitor

Three months have passed me by. A couple more weeks, and I think I’ll be set free to enjoy the summer.

The immediate period following the release of a new book is often a hectic time; but this go around, I find that I don’t mind so much. I almost enjoy being busy. Between this and that interview, this and that reading at x-and-y bookstore (frequently smaller, independent venues because the Meiers are charitable at heart and they believe so unironically in the underdog), I don’t really have time to think or even to catch my breath. Cecelia, ever proficient at juggling five things all at once, keeps me afloat too.

(I also don’t seem to have time to entertain nightmares about the contents of my shredder. I am usually pretty diligent about taking out my garbage so nearly nothing haunts me.)

According to Brendan and Cecelia, there’s something essentially marketable about an All-Star American Boy-Next-Door type making it without the usual spectacle. After all, I’m _humble_ ; I write under a pseudonym; I dislike talking about myself except when pressed in front of a camera. I don’t think I’m an interesting person particularly. I’m only “somebody” as Cecelia Meier’s husband and that is something they can work with.

I am also practically made for television. Before my customary appearance on _Good Morning, Big Apple_ , I am hurried into wardrobe. I mostly tune out while my wife and someone else discuss the pros and cons of my wearing a red tie in conjunction with a charcoal suit. (“We probably should have discussed this,” I hear Cecelia admit. “He does look a bit like a politician.”)

“...Is that a bad thing?” I hedge from where I’m sitting. “So long as I don’t look too Republican.”

Cecelia gives me one of her looks, a look that is caught between the discourses of “what the fuck” in its mildest sense, and also “that’s not nearly as adorable as you think it is” like I’m some sort of puppy who has inadvertently made a mess. “...What if we lose the tie?”

Cecelia directs her question to a junior production assistant, most likely underpaid to babysit guests - many who, I suppose, are more famous than me. I don’t recognize her. Whatever the case, she doesn’t look terribly interested in making me look presentable for live television. “Yeah,” the assistant says with a lilting shrug. “Maybe, whatever.”

“Right then,” Cecelia strides over to me and tugs at my tie, “Let’s lose this.”

The tie had been her idea this morning, but I don’t remind her. “Should we muss my hair too? I’d look younger, like one of the kids. Like woke or whatever.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Cecelia says, tucking my tie carefully in her purse, her mouth similarly in a straight line.

 

My interviewer is one of the two co-hosts of the show, and the arrangement plays true to type. Naomi Wallach-Spencer, who Cecelia knew from Barnard tends to all the writers and pop philosophers while her co-host Adam tends to shoot the shit with big names in business or athletes. I am a bit of an odd case because I look like one and actually am the other, classic bait and switch. I don’t know Naomi too well, only that Cecelia was a bridesmaid at Naomi’s wedding and that their venue on Nantucket had a fantastic open bar.

I forget how hot the studio really is nearly every time. Naomi always makes it look easy. Our segment comes after the bit that Naomi and Adam always do on ways to freshen up one’s morning coffee. They offer me a cup at the commercial break and I decline. I am twitchy enough as it is.

“Still nervous, Oliver?” Naomi says with a small knowing smile, “You’d think you would be used to this by now.”

“I really don’t know how you could manage to do this every day,” I admit.

“Naomi? We’re live in three, two -”

Naomi smiles at me, mouths, _you’ll be fine._ I had to consult a language therapist for a some research two books ago and she’d taught me the basics. Out loud, Naomi says, in a voice that is unmistakably hers but also not, “And we’re back again with Ford Highsmith, New York Times bestselling author whose fourth novel _The Streets Beyond_ is available in stores now. The story follows Scott Jennings, a retired Cardinal Cove police officer who gets swept up in a frenzy of violence and revenge as he tries to help his difficult, teenaged son out of a terrifying situation. But Ford doesn’t only churn out gut-twisting best sellers, he also somehow finds time to dip his toe into television, what with Netflix slated to bring _Cardinal Cove_ to the small screen near the end of the year. I guess the question on everyone’s minds is: how do you find time to do it all, Ford?”

Maybe it’s just me, but between the fact that it is always jarring to hear her address me by my pseudonym, (although it’s something that she’s always done during an interview) and that I feel inordinately clubbed by too much information, I am almost dizzy and Naomi’s inviting smile turns into something nearly predatory.

But I am prepared for too much information; not only have we talked about the specifics of the interview via phone the night before, Cecelia’s drilled me to the point that most of my answers and most of my gestures should be second nature. I put on my Just a Regular Guy sort of grin and amplify my consummate ordinariness with a brief shrug. _Anyone could do it_ , I am meant to say, _I just got lucky, that’s all._ The tricky part is, my wife believes in subtlety, so nothing too obvious. “ - Coffee,” I say, pausing a little to mug to the crowd. “And probably way too much of it.” (Pause, laughter. Good.) “ - Thanks for having me on, Naomi.” Something else that we’d discussed beforehand. I am to call her by her name without any fuss. She always thinks I need reminding. Naomi is good with details, almost as good as Cecelia.

“Oh, come on,” Naomi eggs me on. “I mean, you’ve lived on the _NYT_ Bestsellers List how long? _The Innocent_ broke records all over the place and if precedence is anything to go by, _The Streets Beyond_ is going to do just that. Go beyond.”

Perfectly coordinated with the screen behind her, the mention of my book title brings up a looming shot of the hardcover, juxtaposed with several display of the book at bookstores, all partially empty. Some of these displays are even accompanied by full-sized posters of my face. It looks glossy and out of place.

“...Nice headshot,” Naomi remarks. “Very natural.”

I look too, craning my head back. I know what I look like, but it’s always a little weird. My face imposed in a photograph, enlarged on a screen. I am not a very good postmodernist; it makes my head spin. “Thanks, it took - eighteen tries?” Eighteen is a strange number. It’s meant to be.

“Wow.”

I don’t know if it’s worth eighteen takes, but even I have to admit it is a good picture. It’s a headshot, but it is also one of those headshots that looks like I am not trying too hard or whatever. The session had taken place at my office in the city. I didn’t know some guy coming in and taking just a headshot of me would generate so much excitement. For an entire week afterwards, the word _natural_ had given me heart palpitations. The only upside from that (outside of the photo itself, of course) was that Levi had shown the picture to his mother as a joke. Levi’s mother had, not as a joke, called my office a few days later to tell me that she still had contacts at the likes of Versace and D &G from her modelling days, if I were ever interested.

Naomi moves on, “That expression you have up there is a lot like what I picture Scott wearing for the first three chapters. A little morose?”

Naomi is not like some of the other interviewers, who don’t even try to pretend that they’ve read the book. I know she has, if only out of deference for Cecelia. I should be alarmed that she thinks I’m morose - naturally morose? I don’t know which is worse, “Well, he does get better,” I say. “Doesn’t exactly have time to brood once the first wave of bad luck comes in through the door, does he?” I punctuate this with a shrug and a loose laugh shakes from the audience. Cecelia says it is important that people laugh. After all, it is good not to take these thrillers too seriously; it’s not as if I’ve written anything Pulitzer-worthy.

“Were you always intending to rehabilitate him this way, with the bad luck?” Naomi says. “I’m sure I’m speaking for all of us when I say Scott was a bit mean to Rachel, wasn’t he? I certainly wanted to punch him.” Rachel Paoletti is the protagonist of my first book and Scott had been the primary in the case of her husband’s disappearance. Unlike before, I am prepared for the segue between the mention of Rachel, and the fact that Rachel is going to be played by Natalie Portman in the upcoming Netflix series opposite Michael C. Hall as her husband Todd. I get to talk about these people like I know them. According to Brendan, Kim Coates just touched down in Rhode Island to start filming as Scott.

“Well,” I say. “I think everyone needs a second chance. I enjoyed being in his head,” I think I’m getting warmed up now. “It is so easy, Naomi, to meet someone in the context of their professional life and think they’re a bit of an a - that they’re a bit brusque and mean, as you so succinctly put it. But most people are _more_ than that. People have dimensions, personal lives, wants and desires that don’t exactly fit in the lives they are living now. And more often than not that sort of thing is difficult for them. I just wanted a chance to explore that, you know? I’m just glad it’s resonating with everybody.”

“You always seem to have your finger on the pulse, don’t you?”Naomi looks impressed and I have to believe she’s not faking. “I keep thinking that I’ll find you on the ‘Five Under Thirty-five’ list. You’ve still got a few years left! Or maybe a longlist? With your batting average, it’s small fry, surely. Do you ever think of that? Buckling down to write something big, socially relevant?”

(My batting average, for no reason at all, makes me think of sperm.)

I haven’t cleared an acceptable answer with my wife, but I’m reasonably confident, mostly because the social novel is dead. “Sure, I’ve thought about it,” I shrug and aim for levity. “But you know, that sort of thing isn’t for everyone and I think it’s a lot of pressure. A lot of these young writers, they dive in headfirst thinking they’ll be David Foster-Wallace or something, and then it’s.” I click my fingers, “I’m happy where I am. I’m not somebody who takes myself too seriously. I’d hate to live that way.”

 

 

The funny thing is, when I open the door, I know exactly who it is.

I haven’t seen him in eight years, and Elio Perlman looks just as surprised to see me even though he’s the one who has sought me out. Maybe he was thinking I wouldn’t be home. The experience is both familiar and alienating. His curls are just as wild as I remember them being and eight years have barely filled him out any. His t-shirt, jeans and light jacket all seem a tad too large for him. There’s a junk bucket parked in the drive that looks barely operable. Jesus fucking Christ.

“Elio,” I say.

“Hey,” is his response.

“...What are you doing here?” I fight to keep my voice steady. I feel as if I need to gear up for the greatest performance of my life, of my _self_ because even Elio’s appearance unsettles me in a way that I haven’t words to distract me -

“Oliver?” I hear Cecelia’s voice somewhere behind me, entirely too close. “Who is it?”

“It’s.”

Suddenly, Cecelia is at my elbow. We’re both still dressed from being into town; she’d arranged a reading for me at a secondhand bookshop tucked just behind the main shopping block. It had meant to be kind of a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it type gig, but the place had been packed. She hasn’t even taken off her shoes yet. My wife looks Elio up and down with polite curiosity. The best thing about her being a socialite is that she has impeccable manners and she’ll make anyone feel comfortable. That’s what I’m afraid of. Before I can make introductions (what choice do I have?) Elio beats me to it.

“I’m sorry,” Elio smiles at her, every bit as genteel, “I hope I’m not bothering you both. I’m Elio, an old friend of Oliver’s. I was travelling through the area and thought it was a good opportunity to stop by and say hello.”

He was traveling through. Right. I look at him again, “Yes, but that doesn’t explain how you got my address.”

Of all things, Elio _laughs_ , “You gave it to me.” As if that lie alone swears me to secrecy. “But I didn’t have your number so I couldn’t call ahead. If you’re busy it’s really not a problem --”

“We’re not busy,” Cecelia cuts in and I have to compose myself. “I never meet any of Oliver’s friends. I wasn’t even sure he had any. I’m his wife, Cecelia,” she puts her hand on my arm, gives it a squeeze. After that, she and Elio shake hands.

(If the quip about my friends was meant to be funny, I’m sure I’ve missed the memo.)

“Please,” Cecelia motions for Elio to step inside. At the risk of looking like an asshole (I am not sure why, but Naomi’s assessment of Scott Jennings is sticking in my head - she’d gone with the saccharine “mean” in the end, but it’s all easy enough to translate) I have to move out of the way.

Cecelia moves to take Elio’s jacket and afterwards, she slips off her own shoes. He thanks her, then says, “Well, we haven’t seen each other in a while,”

“Ten years,” I say, purposely getting the year wrong.

Elio doesn’t miss a beat, “Eight, actually.”

“Sure,” I shrug.

I hear the pitter-patter of excited paws and turn to see the dogs bounding towards us, full of curiosity about the new visitor. Aside from Levi, Brendan, and occasional others we don’t get many guests. I notice Elio flinch and click my tongue accordingly. I need the distraction anyway, “Milo, Andrew, stop it. Come.”

I herd the dogs through to the kitchen and busy myself pouring kibble into their bowls, but I can still hear them talking. Elio talking about my time working for Professor Perlman, his father, and Cecelia’s nearly native, perfectly pitched - _Parli italiano_? That’d been a source of amusement between us; she’d been surprised that I spoke a little Italian. Not up to par, as Elio doesn’t hesitate to remind her and Cecelia demurs. My balls do feel a little better, but not much.

I hear Elio and my wife settle down in the living room and so I join them. I am careful to sit beside Cecelia on our imported couch and hold her hand. Elio sits in the corner seat a little bit away from us. He looks comfortable here, like he might want to stay a while. I shudder to think.

“I adore the Amalfi Coast,” he says. Cecelia must have been telling Elio about her parents' vacation house there. “It’s gorgeous this time of year, but I haven’t been for some time.”

I want to offer Elio a beer, if only because it gives me an excuse to crack one open, but that’d be a bit like shooting myself in the foot. Instead I ask, “How’ve you been? How are your parents?”

Elio avoids my gaze for a few calculated seconds before meeting my eyes again, “...Dad passed away five years ago. Mom last year.”

The answer sounds rehearsed, as if he has already had cause to practice them plenty. It is only now that I realize that I know very little about the Perlmans’ extended family outside of the odd collective isolation of them being the only Jews in town. And yet I know he wouldn’t lie to me, not about something like this.

“They’re both…” While it’s the truth, I can’t quite believe it. Samuel was always _jovial_ , in the youthful way that I couldn’t manage and even envied. Annella, I remembered slightly less, only the embarrassment that she’d caused me when she’d called me a _muvi star_. If only she could see me now. But they are both dead.

“Yes. Both,” says Elio. We don’t look at each other. More likely, we can’t.

“That’s really awful,” Cecelia presses my hand. “I’m sorry, Elio.”

I really need a beer, but I know Cecelia would disapprove, “Elio, I. - _Fuck_.” I don’t know what has come over me. I probably need a moment, but it doesn’t seem right to take one. After all, even though the Perlmans were kind to me, kind enough that I still remember it; they’re still Elio’s parents, and he’s the one telling me -

“It’s all right,” he gets up, goes around the dining area where he brushes his hand over the smooth oak table that Cecelia commissioned from one of the trees that had been felled in order to build our home. “But wow. Just look at this place! Your house is wonderful, what a view.”

Cecelia stands too, after giving my shoulder an obligatory pat. That’s the way she is; she’ll make sure I’m all right first, even if half of it is just a hangover from high-minded, polished politeness, “Thank you. We do love it here, don’t we, Oliver?”

“It’s pretty quiet,” I say. “That’s my favorite part about living up here.” I emphasize “quiet,” hoping to imply too, the sensation of being undisturbed and peace, things that Elio’s presence here has decidedly sucked from the balance of my house. “...I mean, are you travelling through to anywhere in particular?”

Elio’s gaze is still trained on Mirror Lake and I can see his reflection in the glass; there’s someone that comes by and scrubs the glass for us twice a week. The guy brings his own step ladder and we pay him above minimum wage; he’s welcome to snacks we have in the pantry but for the life of me I can’t remember his name.

Maybe it is merely my imagination, but I think I see something flash in Elio’s eyes. Just for a second, and then it is gone. “Nowhere in particular. I guess I’m just around. I bought a car.”

“My brother does that,” Cecelia brightens. “Well, not exactly. But Cooper does live in his RV. He seems to enjoy it.”

“Traveling is in my blood,” Elio agrees. “I used to travel with my parents all the time.”

“I doubt you’d like the way Cooper travels,” I roll my eyes. “He sells weed and when business isn’t booming he lives on our driveway.” Cooper is about my age and to my knowledge, has never held down a steady nine-to-five, except for that one time he’d sorted mail for his sister and she had to write him up for wearing a bombastic Hawaiian print at work instead of the required uniform. He’s got permanent stoner hair and, I don’t know. I’ve never liked the guy. I don’t think he’s terribly fond of me either; it’s probably one of the few things that he and his father bond over. I’m always happy to provide a much-needed service.

“Oliver,” Cecelia says, a note of warning tampers her voice but because Elio’s a guest, she is unlikely to say much more. To Elio, she says, “Where are you staying, anyway?”

“I saw a B&B when I drove through the village,” Elio hedges. “Really, if you guys are busy -”

“I do need to make a few calls,” I say. “And we haven’t had dinner.”

“Nonsense,” Cecelia gives me another one of those looks, “Do you like casserole, Elio? I was just going to heat some up. It’s probably enough to feed three, and do help yourself to some beer in the fridge. Oliver and I haven’t been drinking much recently.”

My thought process goes like this: 1.) if Elio has a beer with his casserole he might overstay his welcome 2.) I need a beer, fuck not drinking recently and 3.) if I am really unlucky, one beer might lead to -

“- Actually, if you’re thinking about the B&B on Main Street,” Cecelia is already moving to fetch Elio a beer. I’m taking it personally that she pointedly doesn’t fetch me one. “I wouldn’t bother. Plus, it’s too expensive for what it is. We had to stay there for a few days before we moved in here. I think it’s terrible. Why don’t you stay here for the night, provided you haven’t already checked in? It’s not as if we haven’t got room.”

“Actually, do you have any wine?” Elio says, stepping forward to examine the contents of my fridge. “I’m afraid I’m not much for beer.”

“Oh, there’s still some leftover Pinot Grigio from when we had some sea bass the other day,” Cecelia says. “But I wouldn’t drink it. I just use it for cooking.”

“I’m not picky,” Elio holds up both hands. “Honest, and I hardly would like to intrude.”

Cecelia shrugs at this and fetches him a glass from the cabinet.

“...You’re not intruding,” I say, although the words take effort, squeezed from my throat and twisted from the tip of my tongue. However, I do reach past him to grab myself a beer. If I am not allowed to speak my mind then surely I’m allowed a drink. “Anyway, do what you want, like Cilly says, we’ve got room.”

I know my wife is displeased with me, but I can also rest in the knowledge that she is polite and socially acceptable above all else. Whatever we need to discuss - not that there is anything, really - can wait until later. I peck her on the mouth, “Call me when dinner is ready?”

 

After dinner, we let Elio have his pick of the guest beds and he chooses the one upstairs by Cecelia’s office. I am reminded too, that this is the room that Levi sleeps in when he has cause to stay in my house, not that such a coincidence really means anything. After taking a moment to collect myself, I knock.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me,” I say, and I don’t like it immediately, how I have taken to announcing my own presence in my own house, as if I am suddenly afraid of my name, my own name and what that might imply suddenly in conjunction with Elio’s being here in my life - a life that, I emphatically tell myself - has existed and even flourished without any of his (un)usual sanctions upon my soul. “I brought you some clothes to sleep in.”

I hear soft footsteps and then a slight hesitation. The knob turns after that, revealing a slightly surly-faced Elio who is still completely dressed in his clothes. I don’t know why I thought he wouldn’t be; I have to admit, that it is most definitely me who is making all the assumptions. Assumptions are all I got; none of this makes any sense.

Why the fuck is he in my house?

“You brought me some clothes to sleep in,” he looks at the bundle folded neatly in my hands and then Elio meets my gaze. I have to fight the urge to shy away from the fixed intensity of his probing eye. After all, I’ve got nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be ashamed of. “Are these yours?”

“No, they’re my wife’s,” I deadpan, although that in itself could be not so much of a joke because Elio could conceivably fit in something of Cecelia’s who is taller than him by just a hair. “Of course they’re mine.”

“Oh,” I don’t know why, but this seems to disappoint Elio. Still, he takes the clothes from me and gives them an experimental sniff, as if he’s on the hunt for some trace of - no. “I thought they might be, you know, whoever sleeps here. I found a toothbrush and stuff.”

There’s now a knot just below my sternum and I have to swallow just to get it out of the way. Elio can’t have any way of knowing, of course, “You can’t fit in anything of Levi’s. He’s shorter than you by a lot.”

Elio considers this, shrugs, “Who is he, anyway? Your stepkid?”

The implication is simple, but it’s likely pointed with an encompassing purpose to wound. It’s not like I need any more reminders about how Cecelia Meier is too good for the likes of me. Even Elio’s imagination of her as a divorcée without much choice when it comes to second husbands probably does her a disservice, and forgives me too much in turn. I manage to mirror his shrug, just about, although the gesture is not nearly as weightless or nonchalant as I would like. Elio has never been so distant from me. It’s not as if he would know, “...How old do you think she is? Levi’s just my assistant. Making someone drive here and back to the city in a single day could count as cruel and unusual. The traffic kills.”

“Like a personal assistant?” His gaze doesn’t flinch and I am starting to get even more uncomfortable.

“I get a lot of correspondence,” I say. “He’s also responsible for maintaining my social media.”

Elio snorts.

“It’s important that I keep up appearances,” I don’t like this at all. Every word that leaves my mouth, I get the distinct feeling that Elio is tucking them away and weaponizing them for later.

“I’m sure it is.”

I want to say something, defend myself because I know he’s wrong about me. But right at that moment, I feel a wet nose bumping at my ankle. It’s Andrew (rather than Milo, I can tell them apart because Andrew has got a touch more brown in his coat), and I have never been so relieved to see him. I bend and touch his head.

“Hey, Andrew, buddy.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I am a little smug to see Elio flinch, “I can’t believe that’s what you named your dog.”

“Well,” I am glad for the opportunity to turn away from him. “It’s what I named my dog. It’s a nice name.”

“For a _person_ ,” even without looking at his expression, I can picture Elio’s lips twisting in a vaguely unamused way.

I click my teeth and make my escape towards the stairs, “In any case, I’m going to let them out for a few minutes. Join me if you’d like.”

 

After I whistle for Milo downstairs, I let both dogs out through to the decking and just as I am about to close the door, Elio appears in the crack like some sort of ghost. Silent and haunting.

“Jesus,” I say. Then, “ - You coming out or what?”

“...I want a smoke,” he pushes past me and I feel it in every part of my body, just by the way his shoulder brushes my arm. I give myself a moment or two to come back, and then I close the door. Elio is looking at me, “Do you have an ashtray anywhere?”

“There should be one on the table out,” I gesture.

The lake is completely still. Whoever had christened it Mirror Lake, I have long decided, had a keen eye for observation but perhaps not a great vocabulary for eloquent invocation. Our Mirror Lake isn’t even the only Mirror Lake in upstate New York. Even though the name fits, there’s no denying that its apposite quality might have been slightly eroded by the sheer lack of imagination. I watch as Milo and Andrew nip at each other, scampering off the decking towards the green. Nearby, my ears have picked up the quiet click of a lighter.

I look back at Elio, face alight with the bright orange flicker of flame, and suddenly I am aware that only a panel of glass and thick curtains separate my two lives. It’s really - it’s really not much. After all, the decking where we are standing now looks into my bedroom, where I presume Cecelia is reading a page or two of something vapid (but never something of mine, she is not like me and refuses to bring work home). It’s how she always unwinds before bed. The last time I’d paid any attention, she’d been reading Paula Hawkins’ latest.

Elio inhales from his cigarette and like a moth to a flame, I can’t help but watch. When he’d first shown up at my door, I had taken his unruly curls and his too-skinny frame as something familiar from eight years ago. But I see the subtle differences now: the ambivalently worn details, the slightly straighter line of his spine, in contrast to the ever weighted expectations of teenage angst from before. As if Elio is now enticing, even _daring_ me to -

I am not going to.

He sees me looking but save for a small knowing twitch of his mouth, Elio gives nothing away. Finally, he reaches for his cigarettes again, “Want one?”

“I shouldn’t,” I say, but my mouth already itches.

“The question, Oliver, was ‘do you want one?’ Not ‘should you have one.’” Elio inhales again; exhales. I follow the wisp of smoke skywards. It is so clear here that not even smoke obscures the stars. I keep meaning to buy a nice telescope or something. It is not as if I can’t afford it, although Cecelia would probably wonder where I’d find time to warrant such a big purchase, “You’d like one.” Elio shakes a cigarette loose from the packet and hands it to me. “Here.”

“I’m trying to quit,” I tell him. “I don’t want one.” Only one of these things is true.

Elio peers at me a little curiously, “Since when?”

“Since,” I start, and then I check myself. _Since we’ve been trying to get pregnant_ seems a little too on the nose and it is certainly none of Elio’s business. I am, like a good husband, also mindful of my wife’s privacy. “It’s been eight years since you’ve seen me. I am scarcely the same person I was.” I once had a very enlightening coffee with a rookie who’d just started at the OCME in the city, who’d reminded me of the tenets of high school biology, that a person’s cells continuously regenerated. Philosophically, it could have been argued that we are, every one of us, not the person we started out being no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that we’ve stayed the same. Of course, this was something I knew already, but my companion had been so engrossed in his spiel that I hadn’t the heart to interrupt him. The crux of my enlightenment had come when he’d gone on a tangent about how to estimate the decomp of a body from maggot larvae. I still don’t move, “I said I don’t want one.”

“You could always start tomorrow,” Elio opines. “Trying to quit is a bitch and a half. It’s always better with a fresh start, don’t you think?”

I look at the cigarette he is still holding out towards me. For all intents and purposes, it has my name on it. “Cilly will know if I’ve had one.” I happen to know that Cecelia sometimes sneaks cigarettes of her own but that’s somehow different. And still her business.

“Does she ever give your balls back? The weekend? Two days a week?” His tone is light and teasing, but I haven’t the patience and Elio definitely hasn’t the right.

I exhale sharply through my teeth, “It’s not like that.” I tear my gaze away from him and realizing that I don’t see Milo or Andrew in the dark, I whistle. Mostly, I’m just grateful for the distraction. It takes them a moment, but they come trotting back into view, I can tell that their paws need a wipe before I can think about letting them loose again in the house. Cecelia is meticulous about that sort of thing and so am I.

“Elio, you can’t stay here,” I say with renewed resolve. I’ve already refused him once, I can do it again; I only need to do it three times, “I don’t even know what the fuck you’re _doing_ here, but you can’t stay. This. I’m.”

He’s nearing the end of the cigarette, “...Do you hate me that much?”

As if my body isn’t my own, my hand reaches for the cigarette from his proffered fingers and take it from him. I sigh, “I do not hate you. That’s a strong word, anyhow, I. I know that it doesn’t look it, and what you must be thinking, but I’ve worked for this. It's not as if this is all easy for me.” I want to tell him not to ruin it for me, but I can’t.

“Sure,” Instead of holding me to task because I hardly know what he is thinking, Elio takes his last draw and flits the stub into the ashtray. I can’t help but think he means to do this - all of this, whatever it is, “Look, I’m going to bed.”

I feel like I’ve got lockjaw, “Okay. Good night.”

 

After making sure Andrew and Milo are clean enough to be indoors, I shoo them off and make a quick detour to my office. I tuck the cigarette away next to some expensive pens that someone gave me last Christmas. I’ve forgotten who.

I take a breather and go join Cecelia in our bedroom, where the curtains are still closed.

Even with my back turned, I can tell Cecelia is watching me. It amuses her, the way I undress and dress for bed. We’ve made a ritual of it since, and she maintains that I’m too _methodical_ , _practical_ for it to be sexy. I have a good excuse for that nowadays, I think. We’ve been married for upwards of five years, nearly six; in other words, just about enough time for “sexy” to fall out of favor within our marital vernacular.

I climb into bed next to my wife in only my shorts, and Cecelia puts a hand on my arm, “Where’d you go, anyway?”

“Andrew and Milo seemed restless so I let them outside for a little bit. I didn’t think it could hurt,” I say. “-- Oh, Elio came outside and had a smoke. He’s impressed.” I have to think about my words very carefully before I say them; everything I’ve told Cecelia so far is the honest truth. She’s taken me after all, in sickness and in health. I have no reason to lie to her. As Elio has so conveniently reminded me, I can start over tomorrow.

Cecelia gives me a look I don’t quite recognize, but then she leans in, tucking her head carefully against my sternum. “...You say that like he’s not normally impressed by you, which wasn’t exactly the impression I got. Even if he makes fun of your Italian.”

A whiff of her moisturizer hits my nose. The scent is honey-vanilla and familiar to me. Quite gratefully, I cling to it and settle an arm around her shoulders. I play idly with the thin strap of her nightie and she bats me away. This gesture of reprimand is something else we’ve built into our routine; properly chastised, I settle my arm by Cecelia’s waist. “If you didn’t take to him, you didn’t have to insist on him staying the night.” Maybe it’s safe now, I can allow myself to feel a modicum of smug vindication because I am right, after all.

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” she says, in that tone of voice that performs the impossible feat of making my dick hard and my balls shrivel mostly at the same time, and it usually takes me a moment to come back to myself. “I like Elio fine. He’s an intriguing young man. What’s wrong with him staying?”

“Maybe you just have a thing for listless tramps,” I laugh. “Or maybe I’m jealous.”

Cecelia pinches my arm, “I do not. Well, unless you count.”

I reach to turn off the lamp on the end table beside me. In the dark, Cecelia’s breathing seems to amplify in volume at once. “I clean up nicer than most tramps, thank you.”

When I’d first met my wife, she’d laughed at the way I wore my bow-tie. After that, she’d been summarily amused by the fact that I’d never had “real” champagne, except once. I’d snuck a glass during the twilight hours of a charity gala I’d been working just a few months before. It’d felt like I’d been slapped across the face again with a sharp stanza of Celan - something perhaps alchemical - except this time the sting is tangible as a blush on my skin instead of a stain on my soul and everything felt _possible_ with her the way it hadn’t, before.

“Did you know him well, then? If you worked for his father.”

“Who?”

“Elio, you idiot,” she says and suddenly I am seized with a dreadful paranoia that Elio has somehow conspired with Cecelia, and that he is standing outside of my bedroom door _right now_ and that my wife knows. But then, I remind myself with the ever present admonishment of Julian, my editor, that I am the worst for perpetuating my own madness. If I never rest in the assumption that my readers will believe me, then the next step is just that: paranoia.

I suck in a deep breath through my teeth, “I didn’t know Elio that well. He was what, seventeen when I knew him? And it was only six weeks. How well can you really know a person in six weeks?” Maybe I am laying it on a bit thick. I should stop, for my own good.

Cecelia shrugs. She adjusts her pillows, then lies flat on her back. Under the covers, she finds my hand and curls her fingers around it. Feeling rather emboldened by this simple act of forgiveness, I move our fingers so that they sit on the line of my dick. So that there can be no mistake. She makes a little sound in her throat, and lets go of my hand to slip hers under my shorts, gives me a squeeze, “This is coming from the person who convinced me to move into your shithole box of an apartment after a month with just a handful of underwear.”

I lean in and kiss the tempting curve of her shoulder. Cecelia can manage nearly everything I can’t, including keeping sexy when I’ve lost the edge, “Stupidest idea I’ve ever had and still the best week of my life,” I skim my teeth carefully against her skin and there’s a telltale hitch in her inhale. “I’m pretty sure that’s why your old man still hates my guts.”

“He does _not_ hate you. You’ve made Dad a fortune and you’re good for optics. He’d probably call you a decent investment at this point what with the show,” Cecelia rolls her eyes and catches my chin so we can kiss properly. She still tastes like minty toothpaste. “Anyway, stop changing the subject.”

“...What’s the subject?” I nuzzle her nose.

Cecelia squeezes me again and I twitch, “I was asking about Elio.”

If it were up to me, I would really rather she not ask about Elio while she’s got my cock in a grip, but beggars can’t be choosers. “Cilly, I’ve already said. He was a _kid_. Probably a bit obsessed with me, but I’m sure he’s grown out of it now. Now that he’s seen the world.” I add, “He promised me that he’d be gone by tomorrow, anyhow.”

Her eyes are especially blue and clear when they are inches away from my own; it’s almost as if our gazes are superimposed together now and if Cecelia looks any closer, I’ll be found out. That’s the one disadvantage of good luck, it is almost always in short supply and lets you down when you need it the most. “Did he?”

Suddenly, I can’t stand to look at her. One more moment spent in her gaze means that I’ll start to obsess about what she knows. It’s going to suffocate me before I know it.

“Will you turn over?” I can already imagine the inviting curve of her ass.

Cecelia blinks and I see that she’s caught my meaning. She says, “Oliver.”

I am left wondering if I’ve overstepped the mark, if I always ask entirely too much of her at the wrong time. I’m not like this usually, until I am. “I,” I should start over again. “I’m sorry, I just.”

She sighs as she lets go of me. The covers around her shift and when she flips on her her stomach, I catch myself admiring the way her body just seems to effortlessly flow on from her shapely waist to her ass and thighs and legs. That’s never been a problem for me. I find my wife fucking attractive. I suppose that means I don’t have to worry about my request conflicting with anything else.

“What do you have to be sorry about, exactly?” Her tone isn’t exactly terribly forgiving at the moment, but because I know my place, I take it in stride. It’s all easy enough to theorize and excuse in my mind, that Cecelia is just as stressed as I am, if not more so. Despite what one can say about the role of a husband in the process of impregnation, going through all three trimesters without incident, I am under no delusion that the onus of the whole exercise isn’t all on her before we even start the race.

I reach underneath her nightie and find the elastic band of her underwear. Just one faint skim of my fingers tells me that she’s wearing lace. Likely the peach ones that makes it appear as if she’s not wearing anything. No one can accuse me of not paying attention.

Then Cecelia says, “Is there something you want to tell me? You can tell me.” She leans in, kisses me.

“I’m above reproach,” I grin against her mouth. Things are easy once I catch on to the rhythm of it.

“I’m sure,” I don’t think she’s trying to rib me really; it’s not her style exactly, but it suddenly seems that way. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it seems as if things that I hadn’t noticed before have become alive once again in the stead of a certain absence - things that I hadn’t needed to notice; things that I’ve divided so very carefully up inside of myself and buried all of the fragments in different places so that they might not have had the wherewithal to converge upon me all at once. Except that’s what happening, right now.

“I,” I bite my lip. “I only meant. I thought you would’ve liked to know. I am.” _That it’s not what you’ll naturally think it is, that it’s not because of some kid-now-young-man from a life that I no longer know and no longer want because I’ve got everything else now._ In truth, I’ve told her nothing. Suddenly, it almost panics me, as I try to recall when it was, the last time I’d asked Cecelia for anal. Never in so many words, but I do ask on occasions that are not this one.

Though all of the sudden, I can’t remember.

Cecelia looks at me level-eyed and nearly completely distant from the turmoil stirring so fresh in my mind, “Hey.” She touches my face and it’s a distraction, for a moment, to marvel at how well-kept her nails are, “If I want to know anything, I’ll ask. I can still do that?”

I have to swallow, “Of course you can, Cilly.”

“Well then, come on.” Cecelia wriggles her ass at me and raises her eyebrows suggestively. Both of these gestures are halfway to ridiculous so I can’t help but laugh. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies, we hope you've enjoyed this chapter! Sadly, life's thrown curve balls so we'll be putting this on hiatus for the time being. However, because we love this loads, we will be back to finish it. Thank you so much for sticking with us so far. x


	6. Chapter 2: The Boat

Oliver doesn’t want me here. That much is clear from the way he’s been trying so woefully hard to meet my gaze all evening, despite everything else about him screaming unease. He’s blindsided by my presence and visibly shaken by the news of my parents’ death. I hardly blame him. After all, I have just dive-bombed into his life with no warning, bringing with me almost a decade of anamnesis that I’m sure he has kept filed neatly away in some clandestine vault; far, far away from the prying eyes of his beautiful, amiable, and not-at-all stupid wife. I could see the fear in him from the moment I arrived. The way every muscle of his perfectly taut body would tense whenever I was close by, as if afraid he might reach out for me without thinking it through, or worse, that I might reach for him.  
  
My voice seemed to trouble him too. Whenever I spoke, he found reason to interject, steering the conversation away from anything that might lead to me becoming too loose-lipped about our summer. It amused me greatly that he thought I might overshare if I had too much permission to speak, and I dallied with the image of me casually remarking: “Say Oliver, do you remember that one time you licked your own come out of my ass after three hours of fucking each others brains out?” while his wife poured me another glass of Pinot Grigio.

Does he think I am capable of such a cruel thing? Perhaps I am. And perhaps it would be worth it just to watch him squirm. To watch his throat flush red as I gut him unexpectedly, right there on his expensive couch.

 _Elio, you can’t stay here._ That’s what he says to me when we’re finally alone. His words are deliberate. Careful. He is a writer after all - he knows how to construct a statement that is both threatening and defensive. But it’s as if he thinks I don’t quite understand the gravitas of my arrival, and what it could do to his fragile glass-box life. I’m not stupid. I know I’m not welcome here. But I feel compelled - perhaps rather childishly - to test his civility. I would be lying if I said his rebuke didn’t give me a thrilling sense of nostalgia.

When I retreat back into the upstairs guest room, I can hear the gentle thrumming song of rain against the window. Even in here the glass is full-length, from floor-to-ceiling, and I take a moment to admire the view. It’s nothing more than ominously shadowed trees, gently aglow with the lights from inside. The way the branches buckle and bend in the wind reminds me of every Hollywood thriller I have ever seen. I’m not easily spooked, but something about Oliver’s lakeside château - with all of its reflective glass - gives me the creeps. It feels disorienting somehow, to be always on display. Or maybe it’s Oliver himself and his Stepford wife. Either way, I can’t help but wonder how many people have been murdered out there in those woods.

I close the blinds with a click and get ready for bed, crawling underneath the downy cotton sheets that smell like sugared grapefruit. I’m exhausted, but sleep doesn’t come easily to me these days. I can hear movement below, where I know Oliver and Cecelia are getting ready for bed. The murmur of running water. The gentle thud of closet doors. If I strain, I can just about hear the sound of Oliver’s soft baritone. I wonder what he’s saying. I wonder if he’s talking about me.

Then, silence fills the silence, and I’m overcome with intrigue as to what happens in their bedroom once the house has gone to sleep and it’s just the two of them, side-by-side in their marital bed.

There’s a kind of androgyny to Cecelia that has not gone unnoticed by me. She’s strikingly beautiful: porcelain skin unmarred by even a single crack, and an elegant, feminine style that seems to flow uniformly within everything she does. But her features are sharp, her jawline masculine, her frame broad.

I wondered if Oliver ever submits to her, if he ever opens himself up, be vulnerable around her like we had been all those years ago when he was so sure of who he was. Surely one's desires don’t change so drastically? Does he take pleasure in the curve of her waist, or the jut of her hips? The contour of her breasts or the slope of her neck? The inside of her thigh or...

I have to stop myself. I try hard not to picture Oliver on his hands and knees, legs spread, his wife somewhere behind him as he keens in sordid, secret delight. But the image comes whether I want it or not, and I only feel a little bit discourteous to my hosts as I bite my lip and expel it the only way I know how.

 

Cecelia is in the kitchen when I appear downstairs, slicing pomegranates and looking like she just got done with a workout. I admire her figure for a moment before she notices me lurking.

“Elio. Good morning! How did you sleep?”  
  
“Like a baby, thank you,” I reply earnestly, making a point of stretching my arms above my head with a satisfied sigh.  
  
“Great. I’m just getting started on breakfast. Make yourself at home, Oliver should be awake soon.” I catch her impatient look towards the closed bedroom door, and I recognize it as one my mother used to give.

I follow her line of sight across the room. The daylight brings a new ambiance to the space compared to last night. It seems impossibly bigger and - wait. Is that a piano? Tucked not-so-inconspicuously by the entrance hall window, doused in a dramatic puddle of fractured light, sits an ebony black Yamaha Grand.

“Wow. I didn’t notice this last night,” I say. It doesn’t look an inch out of place in this opulent home, where one could conceivably find anything so long as it was aesthetically pleasing. The piano ticks all the boxes, but somehow I’m still surprised to find it.

Reaching out for the fall board, I run my fingers over the polished wood, admiring the way the surface reflects the morning light like a pool of wet ink. The unguarded beauty of a piano - any piano, let alone one as graceful as this - never fails to stir something in me.

“It’s really just for decoration,” Cecelia’s voice comes from the kitchen. “Neither of us play, but it has a great story. It was a wedding gift from our friends who won it at an auction.”

I balk inwardly at the undertones of excess and privilege and try to imagine what kind of money one has to have to give a grand piano as a wedding gift to two people who don’t know how to play. I come up short, biting back on the urge to protest against the appropriation of a piano merely as decoration. What a _waste._

“Turns out Bill Evans used it to record _Sundays at the Village Vanguard,_ ” Cecelia adds.

This catches my attention. “No way.  _The_ Bill Evans?”

“ _The_ Bill Evans,” she echoes my words with a nod. There’s an inflection in her voice that reminds me of Oliver and it emboldens me to take a seat. _The_ Bill Evans would not like the implication that a piano is _used_. He and I both know that a piano should be _played_ .  
  
Cecelia is delighted when I offer to do just that, and asks if I know _Danny Boy_. I smile at her modest request. I could play _Danny Boy_ flawlessly by the time I was eight, but now doesn’t seem like the time to show off. So I play, enjoying the lost sensation of familiar rhythm, closing my eyes as I chase the keys with my fingertips. I almost forget that I’m in Oliver’s home, wearing Oliver’s clothes, playing Oliver’s piano, entertaining Oliver’s wife.

The music must have woken Oliver, because just moments later he’s appeared. When I catch his gaze through the propped-up lid, I don’t stop playing. His look is ice cold. Vitrified just as I recall it from early that summer and trained right on mine with pinpoint precision. I’m sure he hates me. Why wouldn’t he hate me? But I remember this look, and how I grew to understand it’s thinly veiled dishonesty.

I’m not one to miss an opportunity, so I make a point of curving my back as invitingly as possible, raise my chin, press my tongue against my bottom lip. I know how I look. I’ve been told endlessly - by people lesser than Oliver - that I’m captivating when I play. But when I look back up, he’s gone.

“Why didn’t you tell me last night that Elio could play piano?” Cecelia chides her husband immediately, as if he had been withholding pertinent information intentionally.

I stop playing so that I can listen, but also because I’m mindful of my responsibilities as a good guest. I should help with breakfast at least.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of things Elio can do that I didn’t mention last night,” Oliver remarks, and I have to cough to hide my laugh. I’m not sure it worked.

I intercept Oliver’s warning look immediately, like a parent giving a child one last chance to behave. So I send one back. One that hopefully tells him to quit being so goddamn uptight.

“Now that’s true,” I giggle. It’s too adorable for Cecelia to do anything but beam and squeeze my shoulder affectionately.

Oliver, unsurprisingly, decides to change the subject. “What juice is this?”

“Pomegranate. Don’t turn your nose up, it’s good for you. Will you fetch me some glasses please? And check on the bagels.” Cecelia asks - orders - her husband. He reacts like a dog with a command. “Elio, please, sit down. You’re our guest.”

I also do as I’m told. She knows how to command a room, I’ll give her that. “I love pomegranate,” I say. “We grew them in our orchard at the villa. Do you remember, Oliver?”

He doesn't look at me. I think I know why.

“I remember,” he says.

Cecelia hands me a glass filled precisely three-quarters of the way with blood-red pomegranate juice. I take a refreshing gulp, wiping my lips with the back of my hand.

“Cherries, apricots. The works. You were always more fond of the peaches though, if I remember rightly,” I muse out loud, and I’m aware of just how close to the line I’m treading. It’s too thrilling to resist, and Oliver just makes it so easy. He gives me a look I can’t quite decipher, before something in him seems to acquiesce.

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, laying the bagels out on the serving plate in careful alignment. “I always thought they were too sweet. You kids seemed to like them though.”

 _You kids._ I smirk into the rim of my glass at his poor attempt to hurt my feelings. At least he’s finally playing along.

Breakfast at Oliver’s house is a pleasant affair. The food, though simple, is fresh and hearty. Although I’m sure it doesn’t show off her skills, I can tell that Cecelia is an accomplished cook. We talk comfortably, mostly about our childhood summers in Italy since it’s something we have in common. If only she knew how much we really had in common, then I’m sure our breakfast chitchat would take a far more interesting turn.

“Right, I’m done,” Oliver announces after a long silence. He takes his plate and rinses it in the sink. “I’ve got things to do today, so just - I don’t know. Come get me when you’re ready to leave.”

“Don’t you want to take Elio out on Lolly?” Cecelia objects. “It’s looking like a lovely day. You can take a few beers with you. I’ll pack the coolbox for you now.”

Oliver looks at his wife for a beat longer than is natural, and I sense something unspoken between them. “I’m sure Elio has places he’d rather be,” he says eventually.

“Lolly?” I ask.

“My boat,” he says, and there’s more than a little trace of put-out in his voice. Of course Oliver has a boat. Why _wouldn’t_ he have a boat.

“I have nowhere to be just yet.”

“Fine,” Oliver says a little too loudly. “Let me grab some beer and we can be out on the fucking boat. - Cilly, don’t bother.”

Cecelia looks like she is about to lose her hostess composure and chastise Oliver proper, but he’s saved by the sound of a door opening and Oliver’s boneheaded dogs scampering loudly towards the noise.

“Morning family,” a distinctly British voice announces as the door swings shut. “Stupid bloody dogs. Come on, move.” The mystery guest claps loudly three times and the dogs come running back, delighted with themselves regardless.

“Dad!” Cecelia exclaims as her father enters the room. He’s tall and well-groomed, not too unlike Cecelia, with a flash of grey-white hair sitting tall and thick on his head like a crown. His face doesn’t immediately strike me as friendly, and Oliver, I notice, appears to stiffen in his presence.

“I didn’t know you were driving up so early! Have you had breakfast? I’m sure we can scrounge up something…”

“No need, I already ate with your mother,” he says, leaning in to kiss his daughter's cheek. He straightens up and turns to Oliver, who is, for lack of another word to describe it, cowering by the sink. “Oliver.” It’s a curt greeting.

“Brendan.” Then, “Sir.”

“I just want to know,” Brendan says, shrugging off his suit jacket. “Who okayed the ‘I don’t take myself too seriously’ line that you botched on _Good Morning, Big Apple_. Or if it was you going off-script because you think you’re some kind of smart arse.”

“Dad,” Cecelia says, “Come on, at least have some coffee.”

I have to make sure my mouth is closed so as to not gawk impolitely at the scene in front of me. I move my eyes to Oliver without moving my head. As if any movement at all might alert everyone to my presence and their expectation to act courteously.

“I don’t -” Oliver’s throat catches and I feel something behind my ribs clench in empathy. “What did I say?”

“Thank you, darling,” Brendan says as he sits down, taking the hot cup of coffee from Cecelia. “Just what I said. ‘I don’t take myself too seriously’ and bringing up David Foster Wallace?” Brendan huffs coarsely, and I decide then that I do not like him.

Without even thinking it through, I ask: “What’s wrong with David Foster Wallace?”

(I’m not sure why everyone has so much beef with Foster Wallace. I don’t think he’s as unreadable as most make him out to be. Besides, he’s still great for depressed people and they _definitely_ buy books.)

Brendan zeroes in on me as if I had just appeared out of nowhere and hadn’t been sat there all along. He cuts his eyes sharply, like I’m so far beneath him he can barely make me out at all. “And who is this? Another gremlin I suppose?”

“Excuse me?”

“No, Elio is just a friend,” Oliver chimes in quickly. For some unexplained reason, I feel heat creep up the back of my neck. It’s not the first time I’ve felt small whilst at a breakfast table with Oliver.

“Well. You’re a bloody headache, Oliver. We pay people good money to tell you what to say. I know you think you are above it all, but there’s a way for things to be done and I expect you to comply. I can’t have you barging around with that big skull of yours doing whatever you please. The people want Ford, not Oliver.”

“Dad, be reasonable. I don’t think Oliver meant to insult anyone,” Cecelia’s attempt to mediate the situation is admirable, but even she appears fatigued by her father’s arrogant display of importance. I get the sense this isn’t a one off show. She turns to her husband, who I notice looks as if he is ready to curl in on himself like a mimosa plant, and says in a gentle-but-firm tone: “Anyway, weren’t you about to show Elio the boat?”

 

The boat is not what I expected for some reason. It’s a traditional rowboat - painted a shade of brilliant white with an emerald green stripe just below the rim. There are two benches across the middle and a seat up front, all made from what looks like waxed oak. It’s not huge, but you could fit three people on it comfortably, four with a squeeze.

“I restored her myself,” Oliver explains as he lifts the coolbox inside. Cecelia packed it for us - a four pack of beers and two bags of potato chips. “She used to have a crack at the bottom. Was under the gelcoat so it took me longer than expected. It‘s become somewhat of a hobby.”

“Well, It’s better than gambling I guess.”

“I guess,” he echoes my words, standing up straight and holding the boat steady with his right foot. “Need a hand?” he asks, though it’s a weak and begrudging offer.

“I got it,” I say, climbing carefully onto one of the benches and sitting down. Now is probably a bad time to announce that I find boats, on the whole, fairly nauseating.

Oliver climbs in behind me, sits down and works on releasing us from the jetty. He’s quiet, but his mind is clearly working far beyond its capacity for a Saturday morning, and I feel almost guilty for dragging him out here. At least he gets a beer out of it though, which is more than he had last night.

“The view is quite nice from out here,” Oliver says, as if to fill the silence with something. He takes both the oar’s and begins rowing us out into the water. He’s a natural, and I can’t take my eyes off the way the muscles in his upper arms tremble as he does so. They’re more defined now than I remember, but I suppose that makes sense.

“What’s a gremlin?” I ask.

“Huh?” Oliver isn’t looking at me, but out at the trees as we glide by. I’m thankful for how smooth it is compared to the ocean. If I squint hard enough, it might remind me a little of Lake Garda.

“Your father-in-law asked if I was a gremlin.”

“Oh.” His attention snaps back to me. He sighs, but for the first time since I arrived, it’s more exhausted and less annoyed . “It’s just what he calls the people I put through my mentorship program. I take in a young author during the summer, help them out with their first novel and whatnot. It’s really just a passion project. It feels good to be outside of… my own head for a while. Brendan doesn’t care much for the whole thing, though. But then he doesn’t care for anything if it doesn’t have a clear and measurable return on investment.”

“He seems like a real asshole.” My response is both impulsive and sincere, and I can see the conflict cross Oliver’s face as to the appropriate reaction.

“It’s what happens when your father-in-law is also your boss. He’s a bit of a limey prick, but hey.” Oliver says, stopping the movement of his arms. The boat floats forward for a couple of seconds before slowing almost to a stop. We look at each other as a discerning silence fills the space around us. We can’t hide here. We are face-to-face, and, at last, all alone. Something elemental shifts in the atmosphere. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here, Elio?”

Because I am a piece of shit, I smile. “Are you going to tell me why you’re so bothered by my being here?”

“You know why.”

“I’m not sure I do,” I shrug, leaning back with my arms outstretched. “I thought we were just catching up.”

The rhythmic sound of water lapping against the wooden boat is suddenly louder than my breathing, and it’s all I can hear.

“Look,” Oliver leans closer to me, his eyes now level with mine. “I don’t know what funny fucking game you think you’re playing, but it stops here. I’ve let you stay the night, I’ve let you eat breakfast with my wife, I’ve taken you out on the goddamn boat. Consider us all caught up and be on your way, okay?”

I exhale a laugh through my nose. “You always were quite rude.” What else could it be? Now that he hasn’t shyness to cower behind.

“Rude? _I’m_ rude? You’re the one -”

“Did you get my manuscript?” I cut in. Oliver blinks once, twice, three times. His eyebrows twitch tellingly. Whatever comes out of his mouth next will be a lie, and I already know it.

“I don't know what you’re talking about.”

I scoff. “Yes you do. I’m guessing you read it?”

“No, I didn’t fucking read it. Why would I?”

“Because it was for you. I sent it to you.” I’m aware of the change in my voice; there’s an inflection in the way I say the word _you_ twice, and it doesn’t please me.

“I get sent a lot of manuscripts,” is Oliver’s cavalier reply. “Most of them of a certain caliber - shit. Almost all of them end up in the shredder.”

“Well. I guess that answers my question, then.”

“What question?”

I look across the water towards the house Oliver calls home and the life he has wrapped up inside of it. It couldn’t be more different from my own. I swallow hard and reply: “What kind of person you’ve become.”

“You don’t know me, Elio.”

“No, I don’t,” I agree. “We’re complete strangers. And yet, you’re anxious about my mere existence. Anxious about what I know, about who you really are. Don’t you think that’s interesting?”

“Who I really am?” he laughs loudly, as if it was the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard. The sound skims across the water in all directions. “Don’t be absurd. It was one stupid summer - not even that. Half a summer, that’s all.”

“So why not read my manuscript?”

“I don’t need to read it to know it’ll be melodramatic and self-indulgent. Besides, coming-of-age novels aren’t exactly the in thing right now. Whatever salacious detail that you’ve dreamed up… it’s not as if I don’t know all the tricks that so-called novelists use to keep their audience turning pages.”

“You don’t trust me to tell the truth? It’s a love story, Oliver. It’s not salacious. Nor a trick.”

“Is that what you think it was? A love story?”

I’m speechless for longer than I wish to be. I don’t know what I expected to hear, but that wasn’t it. “Do you not?”

“I told you. I think it was one summer that I’ve barely thought of since.”

“Right,” I say, pursing my lips together tightly. “Fair enough.”

I reach behind me, twisting my body awkwardly to open the coolbox and pull out a beer. I toss one to Oliver who is distracted enough to only just catch it before it goes flying into the water. I get one for myself, crack the ring, and suck the froth straight from the can. Placing it carefully down on the bench next to me, I stand up and pull off my shirt.

“What are you doing?” Oliver asks, a scandalized look forming on his face.

“Having some fun,” I say, unbuttoning my shorts and pulling them down.

“At least keep your boxers -” is all I hear of Oliver’s appeal before I step one foot up onto the edge of the boat and kick off into the water.

When I come up for air, Oliver is clutching onto his beer with one hand and his seat with the other as the boat sways from the force of my exit. I push the wet curls out of my eyes and swim back over to the boat. The name ‘Lolly’ is painted in green right below where Oliver is sitting. I think to ask him about it, but decide against it for now.

“Not gonna join me?” I ask, looking up at him from below.

“No thank you, I’m fine here.”

“Come on. For old times sake?” I ask. “It’s just you and me out here, like it always was.”

His eyes are the same colour as the lake, gleaming green and blue, reflecting the water and the foliage and the sky that surrounds us. I smile. I’m not trying to manipulate him. At least, I don’t think I am. There’s the faint twist of a smile on his lips as he tries to resist, and it’s enough to make something pivot in my stomach.

“Fine,” Oliver says, toeing off his espadrilles and swinging his legs over the edge. His feet sink into the water barely up to his ankles. “Happy now?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone. I just wanted to say a big thank you to anyone who has waited patiently for the next instalment. Since the hiatus with this fic was announced, I (mosolytobb) have changed jobs, moved cities, developed a chronic illness that landed me in hospital and had a parent have surgery. So I'm sure you'll understand why this hasn't been worked on for a while. The wonderful asuralucier has been so patient and kind as always, but here we are back at it again! If you need to go back and reacquaint yourselves with what's happened so far, please do. Other than that... we hope you enjoy it! There's so many exciting twists to come...


	7. Chapter 3: The Prisoner

 

 

My cellmate is one John G. Carielli of Poughkeepsie. He’s nearing forty and apparently is on a first name basis with the guard on our block, who, Carielli assures me, “is one of ‘em good ones.” John G. is what he tells me to call him and I don’t argue. He also goes barefoot in our shared cell and assures me that he’s _clean_. I don’t think I like his implication.

“I’m in for hotwiring a car, petty larceny, you know.” He says, “I stay far away from murder.” John G. also seems very proud of himself for not tripping over the words, “petty larceny.”

“I didn’t murder anyone,” I say.

“You’re in here, aren’t you?”

“It’s a misunderstanding,” I set my jaw. There’s a moment when I think John G. might hit me but I see him very clearly think about it, just how it would go, taking into account that I’ve got four solid inches on him at least, and in spite of anything I might say, the fact that I’m standing here in front of him is proof enough that I’m in for murder. Maybe he doesn’t want to touch me after all; it’s not in his best interests.

John G. doesn’t look convinced, “With you people it’s always a ‘misunderstanding,’” he’s careful to separate all five syllables and makes sure that I know he’s mocking me. “What are you anyway, a movie star?”

Unconsciously, I run a hand through my hair, only to realize and remember that I’ve had a haircut. All that’s left of my hair is a crude half inch of fuzz. “Nope. I’m a writer. Nothing serious though, you might see me in airport bookstores. One of those buy two get one free kind of thing.” Although as soon as I’ve said that, I regret it because there’s something they teach you when you don’t write seriously (e.g. for the sake of writing, for the sake of goddamn fucking _art_ ) - which is to read a room and I don’t think John G. has ever had cause to travel outside state lines, or indeed, read a book. But he probably subscribes to Netflix, though that would sound like bragging.

My knowledge of prisons and county jails is limited, which would probably surprise people. My characters aren’t usually locked up. I’m about agency, practicality, getting people out and about. Making people in my head do things they wouldn’t otherwise dream of doing. They’re fucking in my head; they do whatever I tell them to. Although there was that one time that Rachael Paoletti had to spend a week in county lockup and to push the whole realness of her claustrophobia I’d spent a week in a six-by-eight cell and by the end, I’d wanted to kill myself. Cecelia had insisted afterwards, in the way she did, that I see a therapist to re-acclimate to my everyday life.

John G. just stares at me. Then he turns and walks five steps to the toilet, “ - You mind?”

“Hayes, you got a visitor.” The guard, Frank, raps loudly on the glass of our cell.

The cell stinks of shit. I can feel the stench permeating the pores of my skin, “Who is it?”

“He said he was your friend,” Frank says darkly. “I’m surprised that you still have a friend in this town.”

I don’t believe that it’s Elio until I actually see him. The Putnam County Jail’s waiting room is a cheerless space painted beige gray. An assortment of plastic chairs and wobbly tables are scattered about, in a way to suggest the presence of ongoing surveillance rather than any possibility of privacy.

“Elio -” I start, but before I can say anything else he pulls me in towards him and doesn’t let go. I can feel his heartbeat and his bones shaking.

“Break it up,” says a bored voice somewhere from behind me. “Come on.”

“It’s all right,” I say. “Elio, hey. Look at me, I’m okay. I’m okay.” I say it again and again, to ward us from real life, from the drabness of where we are, to the pressing physicality of my incarceration.

We sit and Elio clasps his hands together. His wrists and his fingers look bird-thin, the translucent quality of his skin is especially noticeable on his face, stretched over gaunt cheeks and illuminating the deep circle underneath his eyes. “You look like shit,” I say, a little trying.

“Nice hair,” he shoots back and lifts one edge of his mouth. “It’s almost military chic.”

And then after that, we don’t say anything, though I think about touching him, giving him some of my warmth, as if my want will fill him out now and make him stay a little longer.

Finally, Elio says, “How... um, how is it in here?”

“It’s prison,” I say. “No, but I’m. I’m okay.” I wonder if he can smell John G.’s shit.

Another silence. I think I can feel the eyes and ears of other people crawling all over the bare skin at the back of my neck.

“I went to see Moreno,” Elio says this, without looking at me. “You should see his office. It’s like this box. Like Jesus Christ. He’s not really -”

“Yeah,” I shrug helplessly. “Not exactly top shelf, that guy. It’s probably why he’s still a public defender in bumfuck, New York.”

“He should have fought harder for bail,” Elio grits out, “You shouldn’t be in here. You’re not a danger to the public, you’re…”

“He’s all I have.”

“So get a better lawyer; it’s ridiculous that you’re in here.”

“Why? Were you not sitting in that courtroom? When the D. A. so vigorously accused me of murdering my -”

“You’re not a murderer, Oliver.” Elio shakes his head, “ _You’re not_. All right? I know you.”

Something familiar courses through my veins and lands white hot at the back of my eyes. I blink back the tide the best I can, and hold myself together.

“You’ve got _money_ , Oliver, you can get a better lawyer, get another hearing to revisit the matter of bail, and then.” Elio looks at me straight in the eye and I can hear his breathing quicken. “You’re not just going to sit here and…”

I want so badly to touch him, imprint myself on him so that Elio can take me out of here with him when he leaves. “You’re not hearing me. Moreno is _all I have._ ” I suck in a breath, “All I can afford. Is what I meant.”

“You don’t pay Moreno anything,” Elio reminds me. “I don’t understand. You can sell your car, or put a mortgage or whatever on the house. What’s it called, assets. Sell your assets. If you don’t have any cash, but your books certainly should...” he trails off again. Maybe he’s beginning to get it.

“My assets are Cecelia’s,” I say. “Which as you can imagine, isn’t exactly - available to me right now. The house is in her name, and I lease my car. So.”

Elio’s shoulders hunch together, “So you don’t have anything.”

“I have... some things,” I feel compelled to correct him either way. “Just not enough to hire the kind of lawyer I need when my face is on cable news every night.”

More silence.

Elio lets out a big sigh and runs his hand through his hair, “...Let’s talk about something else.”

“Please.”

“What do your dogs eat?”

“What?” I say, perhaps a touch too sharply because I seem to have startled him. “I mean, what do you mean?”

“I’m staying in a motel, in Beacon.” Elio tells me, “I took Andrew and Milo with me. It’s okay, I’ve worked it out with the manager and slip him ten bucks. They’re good about letting me know if they need to be let out anyway, but I kind of been slipping them bits of what I eat, you know like pretzels and bread. I know I need to buy them actual dog food but.” He wrings his hands, that, and the load of information he has just dropped on me makes me remember that I have a considerable amount of anxiety of my own. Back last week, when I was something else, I could write it all off as neurosis, but this is different. It’s like I’m someone else.

Before I think about it too much, I take a hold of his wrists and look at him, “Please stop that. It makes me nervous.”

I’m loathed to let go, but I know we’re being watched. I fold my arms and try to sit still, “Can we start over from the beginning? Why do you have the dogs? You hate them.”

“I heard Brendan and Cooper talking about possibly taking them to a pound - with everything going on. I don’t hate them _that_ much.”

“How are you paying for things?”

Now he doesn’t look at me, “I’m figuring that out.”

The anxiety, previously confined to the inner workings of my id has now spread itself out to other, more pertinent parts of my body, like my temples forming a headache, and my nostrils, where I think the smell of shit will never leave me alone. There’s something almost guilty about the way Elio refuses to look at me, that I think the worst. “I’m going to have Moreno get you some cash, okay? I’ll talk to him right away. It won’t be a lot, but it’ll be,” _more than you’ve seen in a long time_ , but of course I keep that to myself. “...I hope it will be enough.”

“But you need it,” Elio protests. “It’s not as if I can’t, I don’t know, find some way. ” I’m pretty sure he’s as unconvinced as I am. There is, of course, the stipend he’d gotten from the publishing house, but if I recall correctly, the final installment had been paid to him at the end of September and I’ve never known Elio to be good with money.

I look around. It’s nearing the end of visiting hour, I think, because most tables are making a move, but I ignore that for the time being. For now, Elio is the only thing that I see in my field of vision and the only thing that keeps me going. “ - Look, if there’s one good thing about me sitting in here, it’s that I get fed three times a day; I got a place to lay my head. It’s not like my money is going anywhere.”

“If you’re sure,” Elio says. “I don’t want to be in the way.”

I’m quick to stem this flow of conversation. All at once, there seems to be a lot of things that we can’t speak about again. Like in the beginning, when he’d first come to me, or when I first set eyes on him in his family’s villa. Otherwise, this little display of things being _all right_ , of _knowing_ , of my cares mingled with his but everything is all right would cease to be everything, anything but. “None of this is your fault, Elio.”

“I should’ve never,” Elio shakes his head.

“Hey. Hey,” I want to shake him out of it and do the best I can with just my voice. “Didn’t you hear me? None of this is your fault.” While this isn’t the ideal way to steer the conversation elsewhere, I say, “It’s probably better that you buy in some dog food, but pretzels and bread won’t kill them or anything.”

“I’ll try,” Elio says. “I promise.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” I say. “I didn’t... think you’d come see me.”

“Not everything has to be about you, you know.” Elio gives a little laugh; the sound is oddly scathing and scrapes at the edge of my skull, “I _wanted_ to come see you because it would’ve killed me to not come.”

I suck in a deep breath, “Not now.”

“If not now, when? Later?” Elio says. “You’ve stopped saying that.”

“Now is later,” I smile a bit sideways. “Don’t you see? I mean, look at me.”

Elio looks away from me again, but I can feel the telling heat radiating from his body.

The room is nearly empty now. I know I don’t have much time. “...Do anything nice for Halloween? You at least walked around town, saw a few of the displays, right? Cold Spring is really into their Halloween.”

“We never did Halloween properly when we were in Italy,” Elio says, sounding like he’s very much somewhere else. “Most anyone would do was a paper skeleton tacked onto a shop window. Dad used to tell me stories about trick or treating in small-town Wisconsin during the seventies. One year he was a ghost. Apparently he took one of Nana’s nice guest sheets and cut holes in it. Was the only time he probably ever got into trouble.”

“Wisconsin?”

“That’s where Dad’s from,” Elio tilts his head. “Did he never tell you?”

I struggle to think; if I’m honest, it’s so difficult to really recall anything from what seems like an entirely alien life. “I heard plenty about Samuel’s life during his doctorate. How your mother basically pushed him through it. But no, nothing about Wisconsin. I think I would have remembered.”

“Dad’s family is from New Glarus and around,” Elio says. “It’s on the border with Illinois. It’s quite up and coming now, but it didn’t use to be. There’s even one of those hipster breweries, now. There’re a couple of nice museums, too.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been,” I say. But of course I haven’t.

“Anyway,” Elio stops me, in that knowing tone that says he’s willing enough to play this game with me; the game being us together, constructing a little world for me to escape into, so that I’ll forget that everything - my circumstances, the bars that govern my existence, but I’ll have to do my bit. Cooperate and give him the time to thread a city through my mind. “He wasn’t really allowed to celebrate Christmas, but he really threw himself into Halloween. In Italy we just did _Ognissanti_. All Saints’. A lot more religious and way less fun.” He laughs; I try to. “One year, Dad stayed up and watched _Ghostbusters_ with me. It was dubbed over and absolutely horrendous.”

“I can just imagine.”

“Okay,” a guard has stepped forward. “Time’s up.”

“Oh,” Elio looks a bit disconcerted.

“Five more minutes,” I say. “Please.” I feel a bit absurd, like a regressed child of some description asking for five more minutes at bedtime. Worst yet, I might be a kid who doesn’t know his place near the end of recess.

The guard looks at me up and down. There’s a trace of contempt held at bay; clearly, he’s been watching the news at home and knows well what I’m accused of. “Three minutes.”

“Okay.”

I watch as he ambles his way back to the door. Three minutes is not long at all and I turn to Elio as to not waste any more time.

“I’ll come see you tomorrow,” he says, his voice low. “I’d kiss you if I could.”

There’s a sweet, unfamiliar tingle at the tip of my tongue, “...That wasn’t in your book.”

“I wanted to keep something of you to myself,” Elio smiles and holds out his hand. I take it and we shake like intimate strangers.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading :) Please comment and let us know your thoughts, we love talking to you guys!
> 
> (N.B. You may have noticed that the summary of this fic has changed slightly. Nothing major, we just wanted it to be more representative of the story.)


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